Dear Life(29)

“You were playing skee-ball against a sixty-year-old and lost?”

“Hot granddaughter in miniskirt? Were you not paying attention to my story?” he asks, slightly annoyed.

“No, I was, that’s still no excuse. You should have been killing it.”

Fitzy shakes his head as he slowly pulls from his beer bottle. “Listen, I want to recruit Martha for my team, that walker-wielding mistress hits the upper corners like it’s her job.”

“Is that the real reason you’ve been seeing her granddaughter? To poach Martha for your team?”

“Hey, if Martha wants to join us, that’s her choice.”

“There is something seriously wrong with you. Do you at least like Clara?”

“Yeah, she’s pretty cool.” Fitzy leans over, scoops up some buffalo dip, and plops it in his mouth. “She’s an accountant for some company downtown. I made her wear her glasses and carry a calculator to bed the other night. Fucking an accountant, never thought I would see the day, but hell, it’s hot.”

“What the hell did you do with the calculator?”

“It was a prop. She pretended to crunch numbers while I drove into her from behind.”

I shake my head, laughter rattling my shoulders. “I don’t want to know the kind of trauma you put that poor calculator through.”

“Eh, it’s not like it was a graphing calculator.”

“Why?” I ask, snaking another handful of pretzels from the bag in front of us.

“Come on.” Fitzy looks at me as if it’s completely obvious. Sighing from my ineptitude of calculators, he enlightens me, “You have to treat graphing calculators with respect. Those handheld geniuses work with multiple equations and ranging variables at the same time. No human brain is quite as smart as a graphing calculator.”

“Really? Even though humans are the ones that created it,” I deadpan.

“Pshaw, don’t be jealous, man. Push your worries to the sidelines. I treat you with the same respect as a graphing calculator.”

I pull a sip from my beer bottle, my fingers digging into the Broncos koozie hugging the bottom of the bottle. “I don’t know if I should be happy about that or punching you in the nuts.” I pause and then add, “Where do I fall in line with an abacus?”

“What kind of abacus are we talking about here? Chinese, Greek, Persian, Roman? If it’s Chinese, you are far above the wooden beads they would use on their abacuses, but if you’re talking about a Greek abacus, I’m going to have to give the upper hand to the counting board purely because they were made from marble and as you know, I’m a fancy fuck.”

I stare at my obnoxious friend, perplexed from his asinine and useless knowledge. “Fuck you, man.” I laugh, shaking my head just as my phone beeps with an incoming text message.

“I’m going to take a piss before the game starts, need anything while I’m up?”

“I’m good,” I call out just as I look down at my phone.

The caller ID reads Daisy, with a flower next to her name. Huh, what does she want? Curious, I pull up the message.

Daisy: Go Broncos! Hope you guys are having a fun day. Step three is to grow our support so I thought I would start a group message. I hope that’s okay. I just learned how to do it from my sister. If you’re not Jace, Hollyn, or Carter, please ignore this message. Thank you.

Sipping my beer, I stare at the message. Step three. Christ, it’s like this program is forcing friendships upon us. Daisy is all right, Jace is cool, well I assume he’s pretty cool, can’t tell at the moment, but Hollyn, hell, she drives me insane.

My phone beeps, speak of the devil.

Hollyn: Great idea, Daisy. Go Broncos!

Fucking blow my brains out, blow them out right now. I despise group text messages.

Daisy: Thank you. This is my first time watching the Super Bowl. My sister said it’s the one time you actually want to watch the commercials.

Hollyn: Your first time? How is that possible?

This right here, this is why group text messages should never be allowed. Why do I want to be a part of a conversation that really is between two people? Thank you, Apple, thank you for fucking with my sanity.

Jace: Yeah, how is that possible?

“Ah, come on, Jace, not you too,” I mutter to my phone.

“Talking to yourself?” Fitzy asks, jumping into his chair from behind, balancing a bowl of peanut M&M’s—my weakness—in one hand and his beer in the other.

Fitzy knows all about the Dear Life program. After the first night, I stopped by his place and bitched to him for a few hours, telling him all about Hollyn, Daisy, and her strange old-lady look, but made sure to keep Jace out of the conversation. So basically, the bullshit I have to go through. Fitzy is my boy but the gossip this man can spin around the city of Denver is obnoxious. He swears he can keep a secret, but I know for a fact that’s not true.

“Snowflake started a group text.”

“Oh, Snowflake.” Fitzy shakes his head. “Doesn’t she know that’s piss-poor social etiquette?”

“She has no idea.”

Turning back to my phone, I catch up on the messages being shot back and forth.

Daisy: We didn’t have cable and Grams is not much of a sports girl so we never partook in such an event. But don’t worry, I’m dressed for the occasion.